Instant Carmen
by JeanBoulet
Summary: Set just before the Season 3 finale, "An Invisible Thread". Gabriel gets an unwanted visitor with a very interesting past. T for safety.


Disclaimer: I do not in any way profit from this story. If I did, my name would be Tim Kring, and I would not bring Nathan back to life for all the money in the world. xD

* * *

There was nothing Gabriel liked more than the euphoric rush that he experienced after a kill. That moment—just as his prey's power passed through him and became his own—it was something that he could not experience with simple empathy. Plus, this was much more fun.

But this was not a game to Gabriel. He was hungry. He needed power, _other_ people's powers. He _craved_ it. Just the thought of a new power was enough to set Gabriel's teeth on edge. It was a thought he didn't need, at the moment. Not here. Not now.

Now, he had to get away—disappear from the scene. It wouldn't be hard; shapeshifting had become rather easy, especially after Gabriel learned how to deal with the pain. As his control increased, the pain caused by the shifts decreased. Gabriel's mind wandered to this as he shifted into his desired costume—a man that loosely resembled him, as to throw the police off his trail—with a bit of lingering pain. It seemed he was distracted.

He knew why.

One week ago today, Danko's men had stormed the pathetic excuse for the home of his father. The other gifted Gray had overreacted. He'd tried to kill Danko and his men, but the cancer infesting his body had taken a toll on his collected abilities. The old man was dead, and the funeral was to be in two days. There was no doubt in Gabriel's mind that, seeing as the funeral had been announced through the media, the entire thing was a setup. It didn't matter to him, though. He wasn't going. Did Danko really think that he could lure him out with grief over a relative that Gabriel really didn't even consider to be a relative? Hopefully the watchdog of the President didn't think he was that stupid.

After they had worked together for a very brief moment in time—which allowed Gabriel to collect some essential powers—Danko and Gabriel had had a disagreement. Eventually, it escalated to the point where Gabriel realized that he didn't need Danko's help anymore. But the termination of their agreement meant the resurrection of Sylar. It was quite unfortunate, actually, that Gabriel could no longer operate in secrecy. He would also be the first to admit that Danko's protection had been nice, but Gabriel was done with the cushy life.

Gabriel made his way back to the flat that he was borrowing from the elderly couple whose grandson he'd relieved about a week ago. They had been out of town when Gabriel had arrived, and their grandson had been watching over it for them. But now, they were gone, as well, so Gabriel took it upon himself to put the flat to good use. It was a nice little flat: clean and compact with walls covered in artwork and shelves filled with books. The only problem was the smell. It was that old-person smell: musty, odious, and so utterly…dead.

Gabriel crinkled his nose slightly when he entered the flat. Yes…musty, odious and dead. It was a good description. The problem that Gabriel had noticed as soon as he'd walked through the door was the steady _drip, drip, drip_ of water from the leaky sink in the kitchen. He'd always had to secure it with his power to make sure that it didn't disturb him at night.

But the person who was in the flat would have no idea about that.

As if confirming his hypothesis, Gabriel's eyes drifted to the small desk in the makeshift office area next to the main wall of bookshelves. A glass, wet with perspiration, sat on the bare mahogany, probably permanently marring its pristine surface. It was something Gabriel would never have done. The lipstick print on the glass was even further confirmation—

But Gabriel didn't need it. The voice spoke first:

"Wow."

The speaker was female, that much Gabriel had surmised from both the tonality of the voice and the lipstick print on the glass. He had to admit that he was surprised by this. Danko had been a much likelier perpetrator. Gabriel turned and saw her leaning against the doorframe of the main bedroom—_his _bedroom.

"Something you needed?" he asked coolly, lifting the glass from the mahogany and wiping the ring of water from its surface.

She had been surprised in her opening statement, but her surprise seemed to only mount. "You're not wondering how or why I'm in here?"

His eyes swept over her as he leaned back to rest on the edge of the desk, the glass still in his hands. The young woman in front of him could be no more than twenty, but was probably younger. Her face was angelic, framed by soft, natural brown curls. She wore a light-blue turtleneck and worn jeans under a brown waistcoat. But what interested Gabriel were her angry, shadowed blue eyes whose color matched her shirt.

"You are well-dressed."

His comment seemed to throw her. She blinked at him and smiled with a laugh. "Didn't think you would be in the mood for giving compliments, seeing as I broke into your place, and all—"

"That means you don't want to steal anything." His dark gaze matched hers, studied her as she moved to the couch with a shrug.

"You're right," she told him, sitting down on the couch with her hands still in her waistcoat pockets. "I just want to talk."

Gabriel let out a small breath of air, which, by his standards, was the equivalent of an exasperated sigh. "Talk?" he repeated in the same non-committal tone he'd been using for years, pushing off from the desk to advance on her. "Sorry, I'm not feeling very talkative. And lucky for you, I'm not feeling up to much of anything, at the moment, so if you could, please," The front door swung open with a flick of his fingers. "Get out."

She just sat there for a moment or two, her gaze locked with his. Slowly, the young woman stood and took a step towards Gabriel so that their noses were nearly touching. "This is the day you killed Max Rudall."

Gabriel Gray could count on one hand the number of times he had been stunned to silence. This was one of them. His eyebrows went back a fraction, and he saw a smile twitch at the corners of the woman's mouth.

"Oh, come on." She goaded, the smile taking over her face. "Ask me how I know."

When he didn't respond, she continued, plucking her water glass from his hands. "And while you're at it, ask me how I know that a week ago, you killed Luke Campbell and took his power of boiling. Oh, _and_ how I know that this is his grandparents' apartment you took over. And not to mention your bio-father's funeral is in two days, which you're afraid is a trap from Danko." She smiled at him. "But you're probably going to go anyway, just to prove to a lot of people and _yourself_ that you can do all the damage you want—" She hadn't really finished her sentence before Gabriel slammed her against the bookshelves next to him.

His fingers held her neck in an invisible death grip as books came flying down around them. "Who are you?" he demanded in a voice that showed far more emotion that he cared to admit.

He hadn't felt the tingle of a lie in any of her words.

Her eyes softened when she next looked at him. "Stop it, Gabriel," she said softly. _Too_ softly. Then, Gabriel realized that her lips hadn't even moved at all, and before he could stop himself, his hold on her eased and then disappeared. Before he could even react, an invisible force slammed him into the wall behind him. Gabriel could feel the blood trickling down from the back of his head, followed by the itchy sensation of skin mending and reforming.

Gabriel rolled his eyes up to glare at her from his seemingly-helpless position. "All you have managed to do is bloody up my walls." He shrugged his eyebrows. "And pique my interest in your ability. Another empath." It seemed like they were popping up everywhere, nowadays. Rather annoying, if you asked him.

"Something like that." As soon as she spoke, Gabriel could tell that her breathing was labored. Further study confirmed that she didn't fully have control over telekinesis. Of course, he wasn't making it very easy for her. He was thrashing and struggling against her hold, which seemed to call for all her attention.

After a few strained minutes of them just glaring at each other, the woman's hold on Gabriel disappeared, and they both recoiled: Gabriel slid down to a sitting position with his back against the wall, and she collapsed into the chair behind the desk—both of them were out of breath. They had fought a battle of telekinesis, and obviously, Gabriel was far more skilled than she.

He raised a finger to slice through her skull, but her sickly-sweet voice filled his head and froze him in place.

"Would you just give me two seconds to explain?" she snapped at him. "God, he said you'd be hard to convince, but I didn't think he meant hard to convince you to stop trying to kill me."

Now, Gabriel was starting to get royally pissed off. "You invade my place, drink my water, attack me with my own power, and expect me to give you an explanation?"

She held up one finger. "One, you killed the former occupants of this place, so it's not really yours, it's just borrowed from the people you murdered." Another finger. "Two, I was thirsty." Another. "Three, it's _my_ power, since I learned about it on my own." A final fourth finger went up. "And four, you're going to listen to my explanation because you really don't have a choice in the matter."

He frowned, and she gave him a mocking smile. But she was right—she would probably force it into him, and Gabriel didn't much appreciate her first intrusions. Besides, he could kill her as soon as he knew she was lying to him. "All right," he conceded, getting up from the floor to get himself a drink—preferably something stronger than water. "Give it your best shot."

"You told me to break in here."

Gabriel paused just as he was about to pour himself a glass of scotch.

"I mean, the 'you'—" she continued. "—that exists sixteen years from now."

He waited for the tingle of a lie in those words. He probably waited far longer than he should have. Gabriel stared at the young woman through the break in the wall that sectioned off the kitchen.

Eventually, she grew impatient. "You're a walking lie detector, Gabriel." She snapped at him. "Tell me I'm lying, and you can kill me where I stand."

Gabriel slammed the glass bottle down onto the counter with such a force that it was a wonder why it didn't shatter. He advanced on her suddenly, coming nose-to-nose with her as she had earlier. "Do not mess with me." He said in a dangerous, warning tone. "You're not lying. You mentioned a 'he' before—'he' said I'd be hard to convince—that 'he' is the _future me_, is that it?" His words came out fast, a display of emotion that Gabriel had trouble admitting to.

Her answer came quickly. "Yes. _You_ sent me here, sixteen years in the past, to find you and convince you…" Surprisingly, her words drifted off, causing Gabriel to cock his head slightly.

"Convince me of what?" was the demand.

"To convince you to go to your father's funeral." Gabriel couldn't help but notice her apparent reluctance to deliver the message that his future self obviously wanted him to do.

He stared at the woman for a moment longer, studying her before he went back to the kitchen and finished pouring that glass of scotch. "So," Gabriel stepped out into the living area. "I'm supposed to walk into a trap, is that it?"

"No, no," she said quickly, shaking her head and taking a few steps toward him. "It's not a trap. Danko's going to be too preoccupied with his own problems to even remember the funeral—"

"Even if I did trust you, why should I go to a celebration of that man's pathetic life?" The woman was silent, but Gabriel had a feeling she was just holding her tongue. "He sold his son to his brother for some quick cash and then murdered the mother of his child in cold blood." Gabriel gave a light sneer. "Don't think for one second that I would ever celebrate that man."

The woman's blue eyes, which had been filled with a natural, quiet anger, were now dark and hollow. They resembled the eyes that stared back at him in a mirror. "Who the hell do you think you're fooling?" she asked in a low voice.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me, Gabriel Adam Gray."

It had been a very long time since someone had spoken his full name. His mother was the likeliest person to have said it last. "What did you say your name was…?"

"I didn't." But the woman didn't dwell on Gabriel's surprise for long. She went back to her aforementioned point. "I'll ask my question again. Who the hell do you think you're fooling with the 'vengeful son' act and your pathetic 'holier than thou' attitude?" Gabriel cocked an eyebrow at her, but she didn't seem to notice. "That woman wasn't even your mother, not really. She didn't _raise_ you, like Victoria did."

The use of his mother's name caught Gabriel's attention. "How do you know—"

"You saw her, her forehead sliced open telekinetically, and you felt _nothing_, not even as a child. Not even for the woman who gave birth to you. She never raised you, Gabriel. She never kissed you when you cried, and you certainly didn't stab her with a pair of scissors." The brunette woman shook her head. "You're not angry with your father over killing your _mother_. You're angry with him for killing the _prospect_ of a different mother—one that didn't spend her time collecting snow globes from around the world instead of travelling."

Gabriel had to admit that he surprised himself. He didn't know he could listen to such an annoying accusation without killing the perpetrator in the process. But still…part of him did want to listen, did want to believe her. It was that part of him that asked the question, "What exactly is the difference? I see none."

She let out a small sigh and let her head hang for a moment before looking up at him with a shrug. "The difference is that instead of being the man who killed your mother and sold you for cash, he's just the man who sold you for cash."

Her logic was appalling, but Gabriel had to give her credit for speaking her mind. After a moment of blatantly staring at her, Gabriel cracked a smile. "And you think all of this will convince me to go to my father's funeral because…?"

The woman blew a raspberry and rolled her eyes. "Hell if I know. I tried to tell him—you—that you wouldn't do it, that you'd probably kill me and not think twice about it."

All right, he would bite. What could Gabriel say? He was curious. "Then why would he—I—send you on a suicide mission?"

This time, she gave him her first genuine smile. "He called it a leap of faith. Apparently, he thought he knew himself enough to think that you would actually go to the funeral." Before Gabriel could ask her another question, she answered it. "In the future I come from, the Gabriel I know didn't even get to meet his biological father. He didn't know that the old man died, so naturally, he never attended the funeral." She took a step closer to him. "Things are happening there, in the future, that are causing my Gabriel to become unstable. He thinks that by attending your father's funeral, he might be able to ground himself with those memories, or even make the instability disappear forever—I don't know."

During her little speech, Gabriel definitely did not miss the almost wistful sound in her voice when she mentioned the future Gabriel's instability. They were close, from what he could surmise. It was time to find out how close. After a moment, he asked, "Who are you to me? And who am I to you?"

His question made her blink, and for a long while, Gabriel didn't think she would answer, until, "Two months from now, after everything with Building Twenty-Six is finished…" There was a break in her voice, and Gabriel thought for a moment that she wouldn't finish. "Everyone will stop hunting Sylar."

Gabriel opened his mouth to speak, but she held a hand up to stop him. "Just...Just hear me out, all right? So everyone stops hunting you, and then you'll travel to Juneau, Alaska for a conference."

…_Conference?_ Gabriel didn't have any time to ask about that particular part, seeing as the woman didn't give him any chance to.

"While you're there, you'll hear about a man with a very special power in a village outside of town. B-Because it is your job…you will travel to that village for the sole purpose of capturing that man and taking him to a secure facility—"

"Facility?" This time, Gabriel had had enough. "What do you mean, I'll be taking him to a _facility_—"

"I can't tell you!" she shouted at him in a shaky voice. "Just…Gabriel, just _listen_, okay?" Her voice was so desperate that Gabriel almost felt sorry for her. Almost. But he did grant her request and listen to the rest of her story. "You'll get there, only to find that the man you want is using his power to torture his wife and five-year-old girl. The girl…she'll say your true name, as if she dreamed you were coming for a long time. At that moment…" she paused to give a smile. "You'll _remember_." She said the word as if it were something to be treasured. "You'll kill the man in your usual way, right in front of his abused family. You'll obtain the power, and then leave the village and continue on your way.

"After about another year, your travels will take you back to that same village, where you hear about executions with your signature written all over them. Naturally, you'll be upset by this and will want to kill the imposter before things are stirred up, and the New Company is all over that little town looking for Sylar. But then, you find out that the person scalping all of those people is the tortured little five-year-old girl whose father you killed in the same exact way."

She wasn't lying. In fact, the moisture forming at the corner of her eyes was enough to convince Gabriel that every word she spoke was the truth. When he next spoke, Gabriel had to be very careful not to convey emotion in his tone, even if it was just curiosity. "What is her name?"

Her blue eyes blinked up at him, and she pushed back her brown curls from her face. "Carmen. Her name is Carmen."

He nodded, playing around with the name in his mind. He'd always liked that opera.

"From there, you'll take Carmen in; raise her on your own. Obviously, people have problems with that." She paused. "That is, until you set up shop in Brooklyn."

"…I settle down in Brooklyn, of all places, after taking in one girl just because I killed her dad in front of her?" Gabriel wasn't impressed. He took a swig of his drink. "I've killed lots of girls' daddies. Hasn't ever stopped me before."

She just gave him a shrug. "Call me a liar, Gabriel."

The smug smile on his face dissipated with her words, and he downed the rest of his drink. "Fine. So I settle down with a kid in Brooklyn. And by this time, has this New Company stopped chasing me around? They wouldn't be fooled by an angelic face."

"The New Company stops hunting you, yes, but it's not just because of Carmen." There was another of her genuine smiles. "How about forty Carmens?" she asked. "Fifty? I think we had about fifty-seven, last time I checked." When his head turned ever-so-slightly in confusion, the young woman clarified. "You start an orphanage for kids like Carmen."

Gabriel couldn't help himself. He started to laugh. It was a chuckle, at first, but then he was just laughing at the woman in front of him. "You're insane," he said, going to refill his glass. "I'd never do that." She must have found a way to dupe his power. There was just no other explanation…other than the truth, but Gabriel wasn't even going to go there.

The brunette sighed at him. "Take it or leave it, Gabriel. It's your choice if you believe me or not." she said, losing her patience. "But the Gabriel in my future has fifty-seven kids in his life that he loves. You can either trust your powers and believe me, or you can believe that I made a fool of your powers and you can kill me right now."

"…You never did answer my question." He pointed out after about a minute of contemplative silence. "Who are you to me, and who am I to you?"

She was silent for a moment, but then, "I'm Carmen."

He gave another one of his mocking laughs. "Of course you are. And I'm the President of the United States." He took another drink from his glass.

For a reason unknown to Gabriel, Carmen's gaze lowered and her face softened, which gave him the impression that she was…sad. "You can be, you know." was her reply. "You're a shapeshifter, and God knows you've got enough power to pull it off."

Gabriel didn't actually think that she was serious…but it had certainly crossed his mind, what with his impersonations of Agent Talb, and even Micah. President of the United States wouldn't be too hard, if he could get the DNA to do it.

"You're thinking about it now." Carmen said to him, a small smile on her face.

Her words brought him back to reality, and he set his glass down calmly this time. "I'd say you were a mind reader, and knowing how many powers an empath can scrape together, I'd probably be right."

"I'm not an empath." She said quickly, but then caught herself and clarified. "Technically, it's power mimicry, and it's limited…I only have one power that I have with me at all times—"

"Persuasion." He concluded, and Carmen nodded. "And the others? Time travel, obviously, and telekinesis?"

Carmen shook her head. "I can only keep about three powers at a time, so when a new one comes, another goes.."

As she explained, Gabriel felt that itch in the back of his head…his hunger. He looked away for a moment, analyzing the situation. He could probably kill her right now. In just a few moments, he could have her skull opened up, and the blood seeping onto his fingers as he searched her brain for that one spot—

Gabriel stopped himself from going any further. God…the temptation was too much. He stalked over to the door and opened it. "You're done here." He said in a tight voice.

Carmen let her head fall and gave a small nod, heading for the door. "Just…Please, just think about—"

Gabriel stopped her with a cold glare. "Get. Out."

So, without another word, Carmen left the apartment, and Gabriel was left with only his thoughts as company.

*

It was raining on the day of the funeral. Personally, Gabriel thought that this weather was extremely fitting for his father's funeral. The man had never done anything right by the world, and now the world saw fit to do nothing right by him.

The funeral was quiet, and there was only one suit that he could see. But really, everyone at the funeral either had an umbrella, or was wearing a raincoat with a hood that concealed his or her features. So fortunately, Gabriel didn't look out of place wearing his black, hooded windbreaker. The fact that he was wearing a new face added to his disguise.

Gabriel listened to the priest blabber on about his father's life full of pain: pain from the cancer, pain of loneliness, and pain from losing his wife to murder.

…A murder that _he_ had committed.

Just listening to this sermon made Gabriel almost physically sick to his stomach. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, and just when Gabriel thought he'd lose it, the sermon ended, and his father was lowered into the muddy hole in the ground. If things had been more crowded, he would have spit on his father's grave.

Why would his older self ask that he attend his father's funeral? It was a question that kept running through Gabriel's mind over and over and over again as he left the cemetery. An even more curious question was this: Why would his older self send someone else to give the request? Wouldn't it be more convincing if he, the older Gabriel, had visited him, the younger Gabriel, to explain things more clearly?

Obviously not. Nevertheless, the memory was rooted in Gabriel's mind. He wouldn't soon forget the brown-haired, blue-eyed woman who broke into his abode, used his own powers against him, and then ordered him to attend a funeral which, as it turned out, would be the worst two hours of Gabriel's life.

It hadn't been a complete waste of his time, however. During the priest's endless drones, Gabriel had formulated and finalized his plans. He knew when and where to make his next move. Soon, he would be the most powerful man in the world, and he had the woman in the little brown waistcoat to thank.

* * *

_It's finally done_. Nathan Petrelli thought as he signed the final papers in front of him. Building Twenty-Six was dead with that last signature, and all of them could finally put this all behind them. And as a cherry on top of the cake, Sylar was dead and burned. He wouldn't be coming back from that.

But…Nathan had to admit that things had seemed…_strange_…after he'd woken up in his office with Bennet, Matt Parkman, and his mother standing around him. He didn't remember anything about the fight with Sylar that had wounded him—or so he'd been told. Any time he did remember the fight, he was always looking at himself, as if he were fighting himself…

Strange, indeed.

Nathan tried not to think about it anymore and moved on to another piece of paperwork that needed his approval. There was a trip to Juneau coming up in a few weeks, and he needed to…

Juneau.

_Juneau._

Something important was happening in Juneau. Something other than the conference, of course, but Nathan couldn't put his finger on it. It wasn't just something happening…it was some_one_. This someone was _waiting_ for him. Nathan could remember parts of it, like recalling a distant dream, but he couldn't decipher any of it.

But he did know that someone was waiting. For him. In Juneau.

Well, he would find out, wouldn't he?

And that damn clock…it kept gaining two seconds every minute.

* * *

Author's Note: First, I'd like to apologise to any readers that might have crossed over from my other story, _Serena and Edoc'sil_. I've hit a massive road block with that story, and suddenly my brain is infested with _Heroes _plot bunnies. You might see a few more _Heroes _stories from me, and I promise I'll try harder to finish _Serena and Edoc'sil_. Second, this was the first _Heroes _story that I wrote, so while I believe you should always be kind and courteous to authors, don't hesitate to call me out on something you believe I wrote incorrectly. I love a good critique, and flames are used to make cookies for the good reviewers!

Thanks for reading, guys!

~Shade


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